


Episode 4: Highway To Hell

by LaughingThalia



Series: HELLENDERS (Demonhunters) [4]
Category: Artemis: Requiem (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Wonder Woman (Comics), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Cages, Demons, F/M, Hallucinations, Heaven & Hell, Hell, Hell Trauma, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Kidnapping, Mind Games, Mind Manipulation, Trapped
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 16:11:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17604629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingThalia/pseuds/LaughingThalia
Summary: Why is everything so dark?Why can she hear screaming in her ears?Why does everything smell like Hellfire?





	1. The Place of Torment

**Episode 4: Highway To Hell**

**Act I**

**Scene i**

 

_Why is everything so dark?_

 

_Why can she hear screaming?_

 

_Why does everything smell like burning?_

 

_Why does this all seem so familiar?_

 

Artemis opened her eyes. Her neck ached like she had fallen asleep in a weird position, like when she fell asleep on guard duty, when she was supposed to be standing vigilante, a solitary sentry, an early warning system against a horde of demons until she was old enough to fight them but she had only been 14.

 

She moved to rub her aching neck but her hand hits a metal bar behind her. She only knows its metal from holding onto metal weapons from basically birth, the bars are incredibly warm. It was really warm here. Actually, where is here? Artemis looked around warily and realised there wasn’t just a metal bar behind her, there’s metal bars all around her. She’s in a cage. A cage hanging what must have been 30 feet over a chasm of lava, broken only by a skinny stone pathway. “Oh Hera.” Artemis shot up into a sitting position when the memories of how she had gotten here came flooding back. She’d been in a fight, a fight with a demon and something had grabbed her. Her and Cassie. She peered behind her and found she wasn’t the only caged woman in this Hell hole, Helena, Cassie and Diana were all in similar cages hanging around her.

 

Humans had sought for centuries to find a suitable name for this place.

 

They called it Hades, The Abyss, The Underworld. They fail to realise that the reason they have so much trouble pinning down one name, one concept of Hell, on eternal damnation was because it wasn’t just one place, it wasn’t just one plane of existence.

 

There are seven Layers of Hell, just like there are seven layers of Heaven and the only good thing about the layer they were in now was that it wasn’t the one she had just been plucked from. Dalkriig-Hath would have had a field day torturing her and Diana otherwise.

 

She’d escaped from the Realm of the 13 Princes, the Seventh Layer, The Inferno, but Artemis had studied Hell like her life depended on it. She knew where she was in Naraka, The Place of Torment, the first layer, Neron’s realm.

 

Neron was bad, Naraka was terrible, but neither could be worse than what Dalkriig would do to her so if she had to go back to Hell, Artemis was glad she managed to end up in the Layer farthest away from Dalkriig and his goons.

 

Diana woke up right after she did and once she got a bearing on what was going on she called down to the rest of them. “Helena! Cassie! Are you alright?”

 

The two stirred awake at the sound of her voice and Diana repeated the question. Cassie stood up slowly, looking around wide eyed and scared, “I’m okay, but... where are we?”

 

Helena remained seated, too scared to rock her cage, Artemis didn’t blame her with the lava below them and the thin looking chains holding them in place, “And who was the man who grabbed us?”

 

Artemis grabbed onto the bars and looked down at her female compatriots “We’re in Naraka. It’s a place in Hell. And I believe the being who grabbed us was Neron, he’s the ruler of this region, he’s pretty powerful, we’ll have a difficult time ahead of us.”

 

Diana sighed, she was used to unfair odds, to being trapped with seemingly no way out in unfamiliar lands against a power adversary and she’d made it out time and time again, she’d never done so with an inexperienced child such as Cassie and a complete civilian like Helena with her. At least she had Artemis watching her back. “Well our first order of business should be to remove Helena and Cassie from this situation.”

 

“And where, pray tell sister, do you think they would go? We’re in Hell. That,” Artemis pointed to their cages, “is probably the safest place for them.”

 

“For once the _demon hunter_ is right.” Neron laughed as he walked through the lava towards them, he was enormous, he had grown in size so that he was eye level with their cages, double the size of anyone Artemis had fought before, “You are in _my_ Kingdom now and your safety is dependent on my will and my will _alone_. Go on Amazon, bend the bars, fly away or come and  attack me.”

 

Diana growled in anger, “Maybe I will!” She made to pull the bars of her cage apart and pulled with all her might and… it didn’t even budge.

 

“Even your powers are useless here. Didn’t you say she relies too much on her powers, Artemis? Vindication is a lovely feeling.”


	2. Into The Pit

**Scene ii**

 

Donna stood at the edge of the pit, taking photos, as did a couple of other civilians who the police hadn’t been able to keep back behind their very impromptu barricade. There were only three officers on the scene, all beat cops, all very unprepared for this situation.

 

Officer Winehouse, an african american man, whistled “This pit goes on forever!” He shone his torch down it and couldn’t even see the end of it.

 

Donna heard someone around them yell, “Helena! Helena? Professor Sandsmark?” and looked up in recognition of the name. A friend of Helena?

 

“You know Helena Sandsmark?” She asked the turbaned man who wandered the streets looking for her.

 

“Ms Troy?”

 

“You know me?”

 

“I know your aura. I am blind, but I can see.” He held his hand up to his head as it that explained it. Which in Donna’s world was all the explanation she needed.

 

A female officer, Officer Duke, came up behind them and  jumped into their conversation, “You psychic or something? Do you know what this is because I’m going to have to write a report and I’m lost.”

 

“I’m receiving many signals from the pit, none of them good.” Randu held his hand out over the pit.

 

“Who are you two exactly?” Officer Duke asked, pushing her long blond hair behind her ear.

 

“I am Randu Singh, a psychic and a friend of Professor Sandsmark who was dragged into this pit.”

 

“I’m Donna Troy, I’m a friend of Wonder Woman’s.” She replied, although she wasn’t really focused on the officer, “Randu, what  _ can _ you tell me about the pit?”

 

“It’s bottomless, which usually means it leads to another plane.”

 

“Bottomless. And yet Diana is down there somewhere with Helena and Cassie.” Donna stared down into the hole “I’ll need several long ropes. And Randu, this is Blood’s apartment right?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“He has magic and armour and stuff? Do you think he’ll mind if I borrow some?”

 

“I can’t imagine he would.”

 

“Great.” Donna ran up to Blood’s apartment and looked around for any items she recognised. She found a sword and shield as well as a breastplate and put it on. “I might not have my powers but I still have my skills.” Donna was an amazon and a Titan, no way she wasn’t going to go after her sister. Powers or no, she was Wonder Girl.

 

When she returned she was glad to see that Randu and the cops had gotten her several long ropes and tied them together. She placed the sword in her sheath, the shield on her back and tied the end of the rope around her so that she could lower herself down, like abseiling. She secured the rope at the top and left the officers and Randu in charge to make sure it stayed secure.

 

“Here goes nothing.” The before she could lose her nerve, she leapt into the pit.


End file.
